Twenty years of building. One question behind all of it: does it work?

It started with an engineering diploma in industrial electronics and a question that would not leave me alone: why do most innovations die before anyone experiences them? I designed large-scale industrial automation systems for voestalpine, Magna, ZF and Porsche. I earned a Master's in Innovation Management.

I found part of the answer at 360 Innovation Lab, which I scaled to offices in Graz, Warsaw and San Francisco: a makerspace, a code lab and an accelerator that drew over three thousand applications. Then the pandemic hit and everything stopped. Except me.

In 2021 I designed and co-built Startup Burgenland from zero: a startup ecosystem for a region that had no structured startup support before 2021. Five years later: 50+ portfolio startups, EUR 10.7M in portfolio funding and capitalisation, a 48% founder relocation rate, and, according to the Austrian Startup Monitor 2025, startup foundings in Burgenland rose 65% in 2021–23 while Austria's total fell.

At Vulpine Creations every product was performed for paying audiences before release. The prototype of our best-seller had 14 steps. The version that sold had 5. That was the pattern in every accelerator, plant and product I had worked on: what shipped had less in it.

Vulpine Creations is the company my partner Adam Wilber and I built while the world paused: a premium product company for the professional performance industry that became a globally recognised brand. 12 original products, every one performed 600 to 3,000 times in front of paying audiences before commercial release. 4.9-star average from verified buyers. Tens of thousands of units in 50+ countries. We sold the product business in 2024.

That discipline – question everything, build what works, cut until only the essential remains – became the through-line of my career. It is how I build products, companies, accelerators and keynotes. I call it Subtract to Ship. Strip away everything that doesn't serve the experience. What's left is what matters.